4 Product Packaging Mistakes You Should Avoid at All Costs

Packaging is far more than the last chance you have to market to your customers. There are critical components to protecting products as they move through the supply chain and affect customer opinion even after they take it home. Here are four product packaging mistakes you should avoid at all costs.

Packaging That Takes Up Too Much Space

Packaging that takes up too much space costs you in several ways. First and foremost, bloated and excessive packaging takes up more space in the box, requiring you to ship more boxes to move as much product. Smaller, lighter packages are cheaper to ship. This will make customers happy if they don’t have to pay as much for shipping or, in an ideal case, shipping is so cheap you can absorb the cost and offer free shipping. Retailers also have a preference for products that don’t take up as much space since they don’t have to restock as often or dedicate as much shelf space compared to comparable products. Custom flexible packaging is a potential compromise since you can fit more product in the same shipment than when the packaging is stiff.

A variation of this problem is packaging that is far larger than the item, resulting in customers being disappointed. Look at large chip bags that are only half full when opened. You should make it clear how much of your product is inside of the container, and if you are selling half as much as your best seller, have a container that is about half as big.

Packaging That Fails to Protect

Packaging that tightly hugs the product and uses recycled materials while proudly advertising the product is irrelevant if it fails to protect the product. If your product is destroyed during shipment to stores or the customer, your customers will be unhappy. You’ll face bad marketing at best and expensive returns and replacements at worst. Tough, durable packaging is one potential solution, but so is reinforced inner and outer packaging that protects the item.

Packaging That Wastes User Time

You know customers value easy to open packaging when sites like Amazon offer “certified frustration free packaging” as an option. Manufacturers should balance theft prevention with easy opening for legitimate customers. You have to be careful not to make the packaging look too complicated, or customers will pass it over for something they think is easy to open. You can only partially offset this customer concern by advertising on the package that it is easy to open.

Packaging That Looks Like Everyone Else’s

There is a tendency to buy cookie cutter packaging with a few stickers and brand imprints to save money. However, if your packaging looks like everyone else’s, the unusual package will stand out on the shelf and be more likely to sell compared to your product. Fortunately, you can work with packaging designers to create custom exteriors for your package without having to engage in the massive custom engineering of a package just for your product. You don’t have to choose between cheap and great.

These shrink labeling mistakes can be easily avoided if you just take the time to pay attention to details. A simple error could ruin your marketing efforts, so make sure that you have all bases covered before you start the production process.